There are civil service guidelines as to when government buildings should raise the flag. This month we have just celebrated the accession of the Queen and flags were flying particularly high for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We have a more delicate and tricky situation coming up – the Duke of York’s birthday. The official guidance is that in just over week (February 19th) the flag should be raised in honour of Randy Andy’s birthday. Some might think that a little inappropriate…
There is still time for the civil service machinery to perhaps clarify with a memo whether or not this national honour should proceed this year. Tricky.
The usual suspects were aghast at Nadine Dorries’s appointment as Culture Secretary yesterday: James O’Brien – whom she once labeled a “public school posh boy f**k wit” – is appalled; Anna Soubry thinks it shows “everything that’s wrong and rotten” with Boris’s leadership; Jolyon’s already threatened to send a judicial review pre-action protocol letter (obviously). She’s been in the job for 17 hours and is already annoying all the right people…
Given Jess Brammar’s appointment as executive editor of BBC News yesterday, Guido thought it’d be worth reminding her about the person she’ll now be dealing with at the top of DCMS. In 2014, Dorries advocated for reforming the licence fee, having added her name to a bill amendment that would’ve decriminalised its non-payment. Writing on her blog, she said:
“The BBC as an organisation has become too big, too badly designed and consistently badly managed. Over-promoted television producers, it turns out, cannot run a large organisation efficiently or effectively. Who would have guessed?”
“The model of the BBC, which is in effect state run television, is outdated in this modern world of media and communication. Such a structure of payment and aggressive persecution would be more in keeping in a soviet style country.”
Her views on the TV licence remained the same several years later:
July 2017: “My issue is not what talented people paid but more that BBC hounded elderly on state pensions all way to jail #licencefee #BBCsalaries”
March 2018: “The public are paying a fee/tax for a biased left wing organisation which is seriously failing in its political representation, from the top down.”
She’s also had a few choice words for BBC management:
January 2018: “You are breaking the law paying women less than men and provided cover for despicable paedo Saville #UnfitForPurpose”
February 2020: “…the [BBC] favour strident, very left wing, often hypocritical and frequently patronising views that turn people away.”
Neither will she accept the BBC’s constant disguising of party political activists as ‘expert guests’:
Guido couldn’t think of a better DCMS appointment…
Happy national coding week everybody – undoubtedly a key skill most children should learn in school. DCMS welcomed the week in with a tweet about how “learning digital skills is essential” – a lesson their social media team clearly needs to take to heart. The post began with the mock code:
“<b>It’s National Coding Week!<b>”
Theoretically <b> would make text bold in a coder. Embarrassingly, the second tag should include a forward slash ‘</b> to end the code line. Much like their hypothetical coding intention, the message becomes rather less punchy when you spot the error…
Earlier this week it was reported that the age limit for playing the National Lottery will rise from 16 to 18 next year, as Oliver Dowden launched a review of the 2005 Gambling Act – which has been described by DCMS as an “analogue law in a digital a digital age”. The current 16 year-old floor of the lottery being seen by the department as a potential “gateway to problem gambling”…
Given these concerns, Guido was surprised to receive an invite from CCHQ later in the week for their weekly lottery draw, in which members can win up to £5,000, and raise money to help the party “Deliver on our promises”. The minimum participation age?
On Monday, a government campaign (launched in 2019) to get people from all walks of life to retrain in the cyber industry caused a headache when one of the adverts involving a ballet dancer was taken out of context to appear like those in the arts specifically were being told to re-train in other walks of life as a result of the pandemic. The government eventually took the advert down, though not before the dancer in the advert – “Fatima” – had started trending on Twitter.
Not known is the behind-the-scenes “Thick of It-esque” story of the Cabinet Office’s attempts to stem the online onslaught. Guido learns the government’s digital team scrambled to try to work out whose responsibility the ad was, needing Oliver Dowden to publicly put the record straight.
Desperately trying to contact the Secretary of State’s SpAds, the Downing Street team finally pinned down Oliver Dowden’s whereabouts. Oblivious to the ballet-based brouhaha, Dowden was found – where else? – in a central London dance studio launching a new arts fund with none other than Darcey Bussell…
The DCMS Select Committee used pro-Remain campaign agency to ‘analyse’ activities of pro-Brexit media outlets under the pretence of uncovering the spread of disinformation online. The notoriously Remain-heavy committee employed the services of ’89up’ to carry out analysis of Facebook data in its new report. The Committee claims 89up is a consultancy firm, but it is really a campaigning and communications company with close links to the Remain camp…
89up was the sole communications agency for pro-Remain campaign group Best for Britain. They have also received considerable sponsorship from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which has made multiple political donations to secure a second referendum. Is it any wonder then that all pro-Brexit Facebook pages and companies examined by 89up are described as ‘populist’, ‘right-wing’, ‘conspirational’ and ‘anti-establishment’..?
Damian Collins’ committee appointed former Labour Councillor and 89up CEO Mike Harris to carry out the analysis. Harris has previously called the backer of Best for Britain, George Soros “the largest single donor in human history for the defence and strengthening of democracy.” Soros also funds the campaign to overturn the biggest vote in UK history, and Best for Britain has itself received multiple fines from the Electoral Commission.
Relying so heavily on such a clearly conflicted firm to push disastrous reforms for tech freedom undermines the entire legitimacy of Collins’ narcissistic ‘Fake News’ enquiry.
